In what may be the biggest casting spoiler in recent film history, Michael Caine has revealed that Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman will be playing the two villains in the sequel to The Dark Knight, reportedly titled, Gotham. Director Christopher Nolan has been in hiding since TDK’s release, and has been notoriously secretive and non-committal about a possible sequel. That all changed when Caine gave an interview at the Toronto Film Festival on Monday. Splash Page MTV reports:

In an interview with MTV News conducted just hours ago at the Toronto Film Festival, Michael Caine – there to promote “Is There Anybody There?” – seemed to confirm rumors that the next installment of the “Batman” film franchise will feature two very well-known names playing the roles of The Riddler and The Penguin. “They’ve already got them in mind,” said Caine, when asked who he’d like to see take up arms against the Caped Crusader. “It’s Johnny Depp as The Riddler. And The Penguin is Philip Seymour Hoffman. I read it in the paper.” So Caine is like the rest of us, reading gossip in the tabloids, right? Except for one thing…according to the actor, he confirmed the news through the studio itself. “I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make another one?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath – Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘Shit, they’ve done it again!”

Wow, does MTV News sanction waterboarding during their interviews now? It certainly appears so, because Michael Caine gave that information up pretty quickly. The only way he should have said any of this is if his balls were hooked up to a car battery.

By taking in $155.34 million in it’s first three days, The Dark Knight has officially broken the record for biggest opening day weekend in movie history, beating Spider-Man 3 by $4 million. Duh. FOX News reports:

We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did,” said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released “The Dark Knight.” The movie should shoot past the $200 million mark by the end of the week, he said….The movie’s release was preceded by months of buzz and speculation over the performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, Batman’s nemesis. Ledger, who died in January from an accidental prescription-drug overdose, played the Joker as a demonic presence, his performance prompting predictions that the role might earn him a posthumous Academy Award nomination. “The average opening gross of the last five `Batman’ movies is $47 million. This tripled that, and for a reason,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. “A big part of that was the Heath Ledger mystique and a phenomenal performance that absolutely deserves the excitement surrounding it.”

Although I wouldn’t go so far to call The Dark Knight a masterpiece, it was amazingly awesome and all the hype about Heath Ledger’s performance wasn’t hype. He was fucking great. If Heath’s performance was a girl, I’d try to throw it in the backseat and get it pregnant. So, it’s really no surprise that the movie is expected to break $200 million by the end of the week. Making in hot on the heels of Meet Dave, which is expected to break $200 million by the year 2057.

The new trailer for The Dark Knight isn’t supposed to be released until Sunday, but due to technological advancements in cell phones and the magic of the Internet, you can see it today. It looks freakin’ amazing, of course, and by the way, I’m calling it now – Heath Ledger will win Best Supporting Actor whether he deserves it or not. The only way he could be more of a lock is if The Joker had down syndrome or could only write with his left foot.

Thanks to a camera phone and the first midnight showing of I Am Legend, the full theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight has been leaked online. And from what I can tell, Heath Ledger’s Joker makes Jack Nicholson’s look like your drunk grandpa. Except your drunk grandpa didn’t dance around to Prince songs. He was more of a Michael Bolton kind of guy.